Tag Archives: North Wales

Colwyn Bay

I stayed Wednesday and Thursday nights in Rhos on Sea, close by Colwyn Bay in North Wales. I feel that with not a lot of work and someone of vision to drive it, the town could be revitalised and turned into quite a little goldmine. There is some wonderful Victorian and Edwardian architecture and little hints of seaside Art Deco too. The town has obviously gone down hill a bit since it’s heyday, but I feel sure it could be taken back up market. Look at this beautiful W H Smiths shop front – untouched since the thirties or forties.


Look at this fabulous Peacocks’ storefront too. It is Art Deco in an amazing, fascistic roman style. I hope it has a preservation order. It looks like it might have been a civic building once, a library or meeting room. I’d love to know what it’s like behind those windows. I imagine a wonderfully large space – probably crying out to be a gallery to pull the more-moneyed holiday-makers from Manchester and Liverpool.

The beach is wonderful too. a great long sweeping stretch of sand, unlike stony Llandudno, just over the other side of the Little Orm. Knowing Southwold in Suffolk well, and having holidayed there a few times, it is so sad to see the Colwyn Bay Victoria Pier closed and rusting away. Knowing what Southwold have done to their pier and how it has so helped the town, I can’t help feeling that this is where the town should put all it’s energy, to revitalise the local economy, which seems to involve a lot of drug and offender rehabilitation projects. Weston Super Mare had this problem too. They are working hard to change the image and have their pier right at the heart of their revitalisation too.
The rail and road connections are great, Snowdonia is on the doorstep, Welsh culture is all around, Bodnant Gardens down the road, They even have a marionette theatre. I’d have thought Colwyn Bay had everything going for it, as long as they don’t start pulling down more of what’s left and replace the old with horrid new blocks of seaside apartments.

Ysgol Emmanuel, Rhyl

Thursday afternoon I visited Ysgol Emmanual, in Rhyl. This was organised by the Family learning group session.

Melyndra Standring, who organised the event, and kindly looked after me, was hoping we may get twenty families signed up. It’s easy to get a class of children to come and sit down and listen to a story, but it’s quite different to get the children to organise parents and carers to come into school for the afternoon. By Wednesday morning, we were fearing the worst and thought that we would only have about ten families.

We were greeted at the school by a happy Bernadette Thomas who informed us that seventy five families were coming! Duh! Melyndra didn’t have enough paperwork and had to quickly photocopy some more forms! I had met quite a few of the children on previous visits to Rhyl Library and their teachers had reminded them and shown them the drawings I had done for them before. I think that preparation was the cause of such a success.

When all the forms were filled in and everyone was settled down, I told the Rudyard Kipling Just So Story of How the Whale got His Tale, that I’ve revised and re illustrated. Then I got everyone to have a go at drawing the whale – adults too! They were fabulous drawings. Many of the adult’s told me they hadn’t done any drawing since they left school – such a shame, and one of the reasons I do my drawing school.. I think adults are scared of drawing and making a fool of themselves but, like any other skill, they just need someone to show them how.

It was a very special afternoon for me, seeing all the families joining in – there were quite a few dads there too, which is quite unusual. Well done kids for nagging the grown-ups and getting them organised and into school for the afternoon. Grown-ups can be such hard work sometimes – eh?

Thanks to everyone who finally got this session organised. It was quite a few months in the making. Good luck with the rest of the project and have a great day out for all those who last the course!

(Jelly fish was on the beach. I forgot to take and photos of the event!)